{"paper":{"title":"Sum of rank ratios: an alternative to percentiles for research assessment, from groundbreaking to mainstream research","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/","headline":"The Rn index sums ten local-to-global rank ratios to better measure each country's highest-quality research than top-percentile counts.","cross_cats":["cs.SI"],"primary_cat":"cs.DL","authors_text":"Alonso Rodriguez-Navarro","submitted_at":"2026-05-16T14:51:37Z","abstract_excerpt":"Assessing research that pushes the boundaries of knowledge is challenging because such work is extremely infrequent, accounting for only about 0.01 per cent of all research outputs. Consequently, knowledge about how to evaluate this type of research is far more limited than the well established methods used to assess more common research outcomes. This study addresses this gap by using a rank based approach in which each paper is assigned a unique value equal to the ratio between its local and global ranks. The cumulative value of these ratios, starting from the most cited paper, provides the "},"claims":{"count":4,"items":[{"kind":"strongest_claim","text":"The Rn index using 10 rank ratios is a better option than the number of top 10 per cent or top 1 per cent highly cited papers for evaluating the highest quality science produced by each country.","source":"verdict.strongest_claim","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C1","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"weakest_assumption","text":"That citation rank ratios summed over the first 10 papers accurately reflect the highest quality science without requiring external validation against other quality indicators or expert judgment.","source":"verdict.weakest_assumption","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C2","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"one_line_summary","text":"Rn index sums the first ten local-to-global rank ratios of citation-ranked papers to assess country-level research quality as an alternative to percentile counts.","source":"verdict.one_line_summary","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C3","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"headline","text":"The Rn index sums ten local-to-global rank ratios to better measure each country's highest-quality research than top-percentile counts.","source":"verdict.pith_extraction.headline","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C4","attestation":"unclaimed"}],"snapshot_sha256":"7a1b83b7b012b024c005863df4475a916553a1143860a1b1ffaee06597b84bd2"},"source":{"id":"2605.17023","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":"d9bd7dae-a0b2-4c57-b6a8-30aca8e3c59f","model_set":{"reader":"grok-4.3"},"created_at":"2026-05-19T18:33:27.318868Z","strongest_claim":"The Rn index using 10 rank ratios is a better option than the number of top 10 per cent or top 1 per cent highly cited papers for evaluating the highest quality science produced by each country.","one_line_summary":"Rn index sums the first ten local-to-global rank ratios of citation-ranked papers to assess country-level research quality as an alternative to percentile counts.","pipeline_version":"pith-pipeline@v0.9.0","weakest_assumption":"That citation rank ratios summed over the first 10 papers accurately reflect the highest quality science without requiring external validation against other quality indicators or expert judgment.","pith_extraction_headline":"The Rn index sums ten local-to-global rank ratios to better measure each country's highest-quality research than top-percentile counts."},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2605.17023/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[{"name":"citation_quote_validity","ran_at":"2026-05-19T19:49:45.520067Z","status":"completed","version":"0.1.0","findings_count":0},{"name":"doi_title_agreement","ran_at":"2026-05-19T19:01:18.801648Z","status":"completed","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0},{"name":"cited_work_retraction","ran_at":"2026-05-19T18:51:58.331285Z","status":"completed","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0},{"name":"claim_evidence","ran_at":"2026-05-19T18:41:56.180659Z","status":"completed","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0},{"name":"doi_compliance","ran_at":"2026-05-19T18:40:41.477920Z","status":"completed","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0},{"name":"ai_meta_artifact","ran_at":"2026-05-19T18:33:24.326636Z","status":"completed","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0}],"snapshot_sha256":"d796e98c2f18d0f0512820713c7e0504688f715a0f70d9a5baae3c62288c6e18"},"references":{"count":2,"sample":[{"doi":"","year":2019,"title":"Materials and methods This study builds upon two previous papers (Rodríguez-Navarro, 2025a; Rodríguez-Navarro & Brito, 2024b). Accordingly, all materials and methods used here are the same as those em","work_id":"a0c97ae2-1895-4d9e-8726-c95b7ea3685d","ref_index":1,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"10.36850/v91j-7541","year":1996,"title":"Discussion 5.1. Aim of the Rn-index Sections 1.1 and 1.2 highlight the challenge of developing research indicators specifically suited to evaluating landmark research that pushes the boundaries of kno","work_id":"75b46c69-18bb-4043-865d-8741fa8a6bea","ref_index":2,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false}],"resolved_work":2,"snapshot_sha256":"aa419812d4b257342509f2e171905c0c2c8c477dfbcbc529ef270620bffaaa68","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":2,"snapshot_sha256":"4739737c7c57ed79c39d8ea1d9050cee0c6a8d374989cb0dfbe05f2c5bca4d2c"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}